Club 80-90 Forums

If I remember correctly on ours all the cabling for the Sterling to the batteries and earths is 35mm²; the battery to auxilliary fuse box (same one as you have lloydy) is 10mm² and fuse box to Waeco is 6mm². All of it was brand new when installed earlier in the year.

It was around 30 C when we were in S of France back in June / July and we couldn't park in any reasonable shade where we were staying so there was a huge demand on the batteries from the Waeco. As I said, over here even in the good September we have had the fridge on a medium setting will last for nearly three days.

Of course that's the beauty of solar...if the conditions mean your fridge is working harder at least you're (probably) generating more power! Ultimately it will still gradually pull the battery down but you can slow it down to the point where you can last days and then chances are you're off for a drive to give them a nice top up (especially if you're lucky enough to have a Sterling!). Certainly if I was going to be doing a South of France trip or similar I'd be doubling my solar capacity to 200W - I did go for a slightly more expensive charge controller than you might normally use but precisely so I can add extra panels in the future. On my westy pop top roof I reckon there's room for at least 2 x 100W panels (possibly 3) and a couple 40/50W ones either side of the skylight! Interestingly (well, to me anyway!) it means I now park up with as much of an eye on the sky (ie path of the sun) as on how level the ground is! The pop top does sit at a pretty good angle for making the most of it if I can park North/South

So can I just plug a waeco straight in my westy set up ie when I hook up it will run on 230v then when driving it will switch over to 12 v without me doing any thing

Hi,

I have been following this and other Waeco threads with great interest, and I have a question: Why is it necessary to adjust the setting of the fridge depending on external temperature?

I would have thought the setting only regulated the internal temperature, so a setting of 1 was say 8 degrees and 5 was 2 degrees and the thermostat will run the compressor as required. What am I missing here?

On a different note: the Waeco is slightly narrower than the original Westy; have anybody added extra insulation in the gaps along the sides? It looks like the fridge is insulated with 35mm of insulation as far as i recall, so 10-15mm of styrofoam on each side and potentially top and bottom might make a difference. Especially if the space below is used for a Sterling.

si&helen cali89 wrote:So can I just plug a waeco straight in my westy set up ie when I hook up it will run on 230v then when driving it will switch over to 12 v without me doing any thing

Not quite, no. It will run on 12v all the time. When you connect your hook up, it charges your leisure battery. The fridge just keeps on using the 12v

hjulmand wrote:Hi,

I have been following this and other Waeco threads with great interest, and I have a question: Why is it necessary to adjust the setting of the fridge depending on external temperature?

I would have thought the setting only regulated the internal temperature, so a setting of 1 was say 8 degrees and 5 was 2 degrees and the thermostat will run the compressor as required. What am I missing here?

On a different note: the Waeco is slightly narrower than the original Westy; have anybody added extra insulation in the gaps along the sides? It looks like the fridge is insulated with 35mm of insulation as far as i recall, so 10-15mm of styrofoam on each side and potentially top and bottom might make a difference. Especially if the space below is used for a Sterling.

Your right in that there is no reason to turn the temp colder due to external temps. The only difference higher outside temps make to the unit is longer running times. But if you whack a load of warm beers in, it can be nice to turn the temp down low to speed chilly beer time.
You could add extra insulation if you wanted, you'd just have to check the fridges specs for clearances for air circulation/cooling

I've also been reading all the compressor fridge threads with interest and finally bought a Waeco CF40 this week. This will be a
fun weekend of testing my leisure battery and solar panel performance.

Hopefully a summer of cold beers is ahead of me

So I dont need to buy the mains transformer thingy just wire it to my leisure battery and away we go

Correct, a Weaco compressor fridge will run on purely 12v. No need to buy a 240V converter unless you want to plug it in at home.

As previous people have said, if you have a decent 240V charger that is activated when you use hook up then this will replace any power used by the fridge.

My set up uses a CTEK M300 25Amp charger that starts charging my leisure batteries as soon as i plug in my hook up. The 25A charger is capable of charging my batteries as well as providing enough power to operate my appliances, this means after approx 24hrs on hook up, my batteries are fully charged and all my appliances have been operable during that time.

I opted for this style of system as i takes away the need to carry any appliances that run solely on 240V, as they are useless when there is no hook up.

Most often the success and reliability of systems set up in this way come down to a few things, the consumption of the appliances, the quality of the charging system and the size of the battery bank.
Take any one of those things away from the system and there will be a weak link in the chain.
Generally, you need a larger battery bank than you think you will need. As a bench mark, i have 315Ah of leisure batteries in my van. This lets me use all the power i need (fridge, laptop, phones, heating, lights, stereo) for about 1 week before i reach 12V on my voltmeter. That's with no Solar, purely relying on the charge from my alternator and the odd hook up here and there when required.

Incidentally, there's nothing more useful than installing a voltmeter for your leisure battery. Without one you are highly likely to over-discharge your battery and kill it. The voltmeter gives you such an easy reference to see when you should turn your engine on or plug in to prevent damage to your batteries.

Just one question about the fridge ive seen the pictures of the fridges fitted but how are they held in the cabinets can you srew into them like my old westy fridge

si&helen cali89 wrote:Just one question about the fridge ive seen the pictures of the fridges fitted but how are they held in the cabinets can you srew into them like my old westy fridge

They are screwed from the inside with caps to cover the screws.

Thank you everyone for the helpful info on the waeco fridge I will be ordering one soon as. cant wait for ice cold beers again.

hjulmand wrote:
On a different note: the Waeco is slightly narrower than the original Westy; have anybody added extra insulation in the gaps along the sides? It looks like the fridge is insulated with 35mm of insulation as far as i recall, so 10-15mm of styrofoam on each side and potentially top and bottom might make a difference. Especially if the space below is used for a Sterling.

This is a good idea. I asked Dometic there thoughts. This is there reply.

Hello Sir,
Thank you for your email

Please ensure you have adequate ventilation. However, if you have, and insulating this gap does not impede on this, then certainly go ahead, it will only assist in the performance of the product.

lloydy wrote:They make a noise yes, similar to your house fridge. At night you will hear it more, it only runs for a few minutes every half hour. So not a constant noise.
It doesn't bother me at all

I just got one too, but it seems to run quite frequent... I can hear the compressor run every few minutes for a short time followed by the fan for a bit longer...
I wonder if something is wrong with mine (it was a cheaper display model from ebay)..
Also there is a blinking red light, which according to the manual means low power, but the battery has over 12V... and it even blinks with the solar panel charging..